The invention relates to systems permitting advertisers to target geographical regions and demographic groups with ever changing, current advertising content without incurring the high fixed cost of traditional single-message billboards. More particularly, the invention relates to a system and method permitting commercial advertisers, such as consumer product companies and the advertising agents that represent them, to directly access a network of thousands of large, high resolution electronic displays located in high traffic areas and to directly send their own advertisements electronically to the network to be displayed at locations and times selected by the advertiser.
Consumer product advertising takes many forms, such as television commercials, newspaper and magazine advertisements, mailings, point-of-sale displays, outdoor billboards, etc. Using current advertising media, advertisers engage in a constant struggle to efficiently use their budgets to most effectively reach their geographic and demographic targets.
Focusing on the outdoor advertising component of advertising by consumer product companies, it is well known that outdoor billboards have traditionally taken the form of single-message displays formed of printed sheets or painted surfaces containing the advertising content adhered to a flat backing. This time-honored outdoor advertising technique has remained essentially unchanged throughout the twentieth century. The high cost of printing, transporting and mounting a message on a conventional billboard has dictated that the same message remain in place for a considerable period of time. Thus, a conventional billboard cannot be readily changed to reflect current events within the geographic area of the billboard. Additionally, the content on a conventional billboard tends to become essentially xe2x80x9cinvisiblexe2x80x9d as a part of the landscape after its content has been in place for a relatively short period of time, especially to commuters and others who regularly pass the billboard. Beyond the above problems with cost, single-message content, lack of content changeover capability, and the like, conventional outdoor billboards have come under increasing criticism because in their large numbers, and often tattered condition, they clutter highways with a distasteful form of visual xe2x80x9cpollutionxe2x80x9d. A reduction in the number of billboards and improvement of the appearance of those that remain, if accomplished while increasing the overall advertising impact afforded by outdoor advertising, would please virtually everyone.
The use of electronic billboards has been suggested, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,612,741. However, there is no electronic billboard network in operation whereby commercial advertisers may directly place ads onto selected billboards at selected times through direct access to a master network. Such a network, properly designed and operated, promises to overcome the numerous disadvantages currently associated with the outdoor advertising industry, while also meeting the above-enumerated needs of consumer products advertisers.
According to the present invention, commercial advertisers, such as consumer product companies and the advertising agents that represent them, directly access a network of multiple large, high resolution electronic displays located in high traffic areas and directly send their own advertisements electronically to the network to be displayed at locations and times selected by the advertisers. In preferred embodiments, the system of the invention includes a central information processing center that permits customers to review a schedule of times and electronic display locations that are available for placement of advertisements, and also permits customers to purchase available times at selected electronic display locations for placement of their advertising content. The customer then transmits his video or still image advertising content to the processing center where the content is reviewed for appropriateness and then transmitted to the customer-selected electronic display(s). The electronic displays preferably are large (e.g., 23xc3x9733xc2xd ft.) flat LED displays that are driven by their own video or image servers. Verification that the advertisements run as ordered is facilitated by an information storage module or, more preferably, by a digital camera or series of digital cameras. A traffic counter may be used to determine the traffic that passed by the display while the advertisement was running. Bills and reports containing market and demographic analysis are generated and sent to the customer.